1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to quality control systems, quality control methods, quality control programs and recording media on which the quality control program is recorded, which enable product quality information to be tracked throughout the life cycle of a product as it passes through the processes of parts incoming, production, outgoing inspection and market.
2. Background Art
A system for performing product quality control has previously been disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-091236.
This conventional quality control system obtains improved quality by storing set history information and, when a defect is discovered, by preventing outgoing of products having identical set histories and taking steps to avoid the reoccurrence of the same defect. The system is adapted to collect, for each product, essential process quality information from production facilities, and to halt outgoing when a problem occurs in a manufacturing step.
However, a shortcoming encountered with the aforementioned conventional quality control system is that when a quality-related problem has occurred on the market, it is not possible to trace backwards and ascertain for example whether the quality problem in that product arose at the production process, or whether it was a quality problem in a part constituting that product. That is to say, the shortcoming encountered is that it does not provide a quality history for each product or model throughout parts incoming, production, outgoing and market.
A further shortcoming is that even if the quality histories of each product or model were to be tabulated, because the representation of quality defect information items generated during the life cycle of a product is not systematized, it would be impossible to tabulate at the same level, and excessive time would be required for the tabulation and for subsequent analysis.